


certain uncertain things

by empyrreal



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Christoffer-centric, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fix-It, Future Fic, Implied Sexual Content, Post-Canon, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 11:14:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11850417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empyrreal/pseuds/empyrreal
Summary: There are few things Christoffer Schistad is certain of.(Or, even "Penetrator Chris" figures it out, eventually.)





	certain uncertain things

Christoffer Schistad has always been a little lost, a little out of his depth, even if he hardly ever shows it. He walks off-balance, but he's learned to pass it off as swagger, and he owns it, like every other uncertain thing in his life. A boy made of bravado and a man half-made— what does that make him, really?

The world is too quiet and too sober at 4 a.m. He doesn't like it.

Taking another swig of cheap beer, he drifts.

 

-

 

For a while, Eva Mohn is the only thing he's certain of.

It's been, what, _years_ since they've started hooking up. Two where he's almost essentially _exclusively_ hooking up with Eva.

These are the facts. Facts that, strangely enough, don't scare him that much because this hurricane of a girl stormed into his life and just stayed there somehow, a constant.

Which is to say, she has become a more reliable presence in his life than William, his shit ass of a best friend who can honestly go fuck himself for moving to London and only came back for a girl he claims to love and not for his tried and true best friend of many years. Really, Chris would be lying if he said he wasn't a little miserable without William, but Eva was _there_ and she kind of made Oslo brighter just by existing.

Yeah, he's so far gone that he compares her to the fucking _sun_ , in his mind. Because a) she's hot and makes him feel like he has caught fire on his skin; b) she brightens the room when she enters and is nearly blinding when she smiles at him; c) she has some sort of too-powerful gravitational force that keep dragging him in.

Not that he particularly minds, but he is also kind of so in too deep to mind the fact that Christoffer Schistad is halfway in love with Eva Mohn(, if not completely).

Still, he likes their arrangement just fine, being fuck buddies who are always there for each other when they need it. The way they're so well acquainted with each other's body, how well he knows her wants and needs and each cue to match and each reaction he gets from her— and vice versa, of course. He likes it very much.

But he also likes when they're not fucking on her bed or making out against a wall at some party. When they're texting almost 24/7, when they're flicking flour at each other although they're supposed to be making pancakes for breakfast, when he takes her out for dinner at a new restaurant he knows she’ll like, when she makes him actually _watch_ Netflix with her and he’ll end up getting invested in some stupid series. He likes this, too.

Chris wants all of it and more. (He thinks.)

He's good at being self-assured, mostly. The usual case is he knows what he wants and knows how to get it, and he usually knows that the want is reciprocated before he makes a move or let _them_ make a move.

In this respect, he's not sure with Eva. It's the first time she has set him on edge like this. There are few certain things in his life, and she's supposed to be one of them. (Or so he hopes, at least.)

He's not ready to tell her outright, but he makes it as clear as possible in a bullshit dream he made up while he was watching her sleep. ( _Who feels like the stalker now?_ )

When she calls him a “cheating fuckboy,” it stings more than it should because, well, she's right. It's true. At least, at the time they met and first hooked up, he was.

But now it stings for some reason, and he wonders if that's all she'll ever see when she looks at him in the soft morning light and kisses him with full lips curved in a full smile.

Where there's supposed to be symphony, he hears dissonance.

But then his hands are on her hips and waist, her fingers on his jaw, and he can't seem to care beyond the feel of her skin and her mouth on his.

 

-

 

He is so out of it at Sana’s Eid party.

Maybe it's because he drank too much last night, alone, the memory of Eva’s refusal in bed, her slight hesitation and awkwardness when he got her flowers, even the subtle change in her smiles— taunting him, haunting him, in his more lucid drunk moments.

Hell, it's still here at the back of his mind when he's cold sober, but who sees that when he's acting like his usual, sure self, teasing Eva for the food she got and eating it off her plate?

 _We're never going to be together._ The words come into his mind when he notices a bit of sauce on her cheek. She's smiling at him too brightly all the while, even if she's all but sworn to never consider him anything more than a fuck buddy. So maybe he's _not_ allowed to lean in and lick that bit of sauce off her cheek even if the impulse is there. That's too “boyfriend” territory, and even if he got her flowers and she invited him to the party, he's still not quite allowed that kind of privilege. _Because you're a cheating fuckboy._

Is that what she sees when she's smiling and laughing at him like that? Is that it?

God, it hurts to orbit so close to the sun for so long. He tells her he's going to get himself some of those delicious meatballs. She lets him go like that. They're not together. Never were in the first place.

He's getting food when he sees  _her_.

There's a sort of click in his mind. This is something he knows, something he's familiar with. Right now, this seems to be the most real thing in his life so he grabs onto it. This is it, the moment that changes everything.

He's so damn tired of drifting without direction.

 

-

 

Her name is Emma, and she looks like Natalie Portman, and she's pretty and slender and bright-eyed. (She's not Eva though.) He tells her he likes her name in between kisses (because it sounds like Eva, he doesn't want to admit) and kisses her harder trying to find something that isn't there (probably the reason why he doesn't really hook up with other people after he and Eva became a regular thing; it just doesn't do it for him anymore).

She tells him she's sixteen, and he stops. The full weight of _twenty_ hits him hard like his first shot of vodka when he was fourteen, and he wonders if he's somehow matured a bit while he wasn't watching.

She's _sixteen_ , and he decides he's done fucking over girls in upper secondary school. Instead, he takes her home and leaves her the most sage and sincere advice of:

“Stay away from assholes. They're never worth it.”

“Assholes like you?” Emma challenges, eyes still eager, still hungry, still desperate for _something_ he can't possibly give her. It's a little cringey, honestly, but he remembers that she's sixteen and young and still allowed some time to learn how to grow up someday. (Hell, he's twenty and still learning how to grow up.)

“Assholes who cheat and lie and fuck around like me,” Chris affirms with a sharp, sardonic smile. The irony isn't lost on him. He can't believe _he's_ the one warning her. “We don't really change, you know?”

The look she gives him is surprising: brittle, like she knows about assholes who cheat and lie and fuck around, but without judgment, like she doesn't know the reputation _Penetrator Chris_ lives up to.

(She doesn't, really, and that's what was so attractive about that first look— maybe he wants to be seen as more than _Penetrator Chris_ today, wants to be wanted for whoever the fuck he is.)

“I don't think so, but good luck,” she says.

Chris raises an eyebrow at that.

“Thanks,” he replies.

When he turns away, he's already thinking of Eva again, _always Eva_ , and how he's going to fix this thing with Eva, and how they can still have a shot at ending up together because, damn it all, Eva makes him _want_ to change.

 

-

 

Later, he hears from William who heard from Noora that Eva is back with Jonas again. For real.

 _Of course,_ he thinks. Seems that he's not the only one who falls back to bad habits to run away from things they don't want to face.

It makes him feel a bit better, knowing he's not the only one not ready, not the only one to blame. Mostly, it makes him feel numb.

But also kind of pissed as hell.

He's pissed at himself for fucking this up, he's pissed at Eva for fucking _him_ up in the first place, and he's also pissed at William for the shit advice that made him fuck up and ask out _Emma_ , out of all people, just because of some bullshit “moment” that's supposed to happen with your “true love.”

Honestly, maybe it's more Chris’ own fault that he thought the instant attraction between Emma and him could be the real thing, and that's the fucking tragedy of it: guess that really turned out to be the moment that changes everything, hasn't it?

Truly, he has never been more pissed.

A restless, reckless kind of rage fills him up to the core. He wants to get drunk, get into a fight, and get fucked up. He wants hurt someone and hurt himself and hurt the people who are supposed to care (William, and even Eva, to name a few). Self-destructive energy prickles in his veins, begging for release.

He doesn't act on it though. He remembers how much time William spent in the hospital taking care of him after the Yakuza guys, he remembers the adorable ( _stop it_ , he tells himself) scrunch of Eva’s brows when she's cleaning him up after the fights he gets into at clubs (less and less after she's made it clear that it worries her). There's also his mother, his little sister, and even his mostly absent father (a much more loving family than a lot of people can ask for, really).

Alright, so maybe he's going to take better care of himself now that William and Eva aren't so available to him anymore, or maybe he has just grown up enough not to act on his more self-destructive impulses for other people’s sakes.

So he does the next best thing.

He leaves without saying goodbye, only texts back the people who text him first, asking about his sudden departure.

Eva isn't one of them.

 

-

 

Social media is the only thread left between them.

Kind of, anyways.

Eva doesn't follow him on Instagram anymore though, he checked a few weeks after their strange fallout. He's not even sure if _that's_ what it is.

(He'd call it more of a _fadeout_.)

He can't say he blames her. It's impossible for him to use Instagram without thinking about her and how they began flirting. He wonders, occasionally, mostly when he's less than sober, if it's the same for her and if that's why she unfollowed him. (He's hoping it is.)

However, he still follows her and likes every single picture she posts.

He hopes she sees his name in the notification. The immature part of him wants it to hurt, wants his name to create the same sweet-sour sting in her heart, the way her name does to his. The larger part of him just wants her to know he's happy for her (or, he will be happy for her _completely_ , one day).

There's no set protocol for ex-“not-boyfriends.” They weren't really in a relationship, the only thing certain was the fucking good sex, but Chris likes to think they did become pretty good friends somewhere in between hooking up at parties and elsewhere. She's never said no to him being her friend, now, did she?

Anyways, he likes to think of himself as a _someone_ in her life. Not the kind that just leaves hickeys and fingerprints on her skin, the kind that leaves marks on her heart.

It's a bit of a stretch, a bit much to ask for, but that's the _someone_ he wants to be in her story. Or wanted to be. (Or was.)

For now, he’ll just keep his distance and focus on himself. Yes, he's still drifting, but he has a feeling he's getting closer to land.

Oh, and he’ll keep liking Eva’s posts on Instagram, secretly (yes, he _will_ deny it, especially to himself,) holding out the hope that one day, she’ll go through his new posts and like them all and he’ll have to take a screenshot of his activity page and call her “stalker” again.

 

-

 

One day, she _does._

Chris would like to say that he saw it and grinned, that he reacted immediately with a casual, flirty text. In reality, he is pretty sure he stared at his phone screen for nearly ten minutes before he takes a screenshot. It takes another fifteen minutes for him to actually formulate a perfect message to go with the screenshot he sends.

Caution is not exactly his strong point (never was), but his heart is wary in a way it wasn't before (or, back when he thought it didn't even really exist.).

But then they fall back into flirting over DMs again.

Sometimes, they talk like they're old friends (they _are_ ), asking about how the other is doing, about how their friends are (admittedly he always liked gossiping with her), sometimes even about family (not everyone has introduced themselves to a friend’s parent wearing only a blanket).

Most times, they talk flirty and dirty and Chris would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it a lot (a little too much).

They don't ever talk about meeting up, and that's okay. She's doing okay, and so is he.

 

-

 

It's been nearly three years since they've last seen each other in person at Sana’a Eid party, and, _fuck_ , the fact that he missed her hits him all at once the moment he sees her again.

They meet at a bar instead of a party. Uncharacteristic of them, true, but it's been a while. Chris wants to actually _talk_ to Eva this time, rather than hook up (not that he thinks she’d even let him touch her after what happened).

She looks good, _always_ , but it's the smile that unfurls on her face when he says _halla_ the way he always did back then that reminds him of why she was the first girl he thought of as _beautiful_.

Damn, he missed her.

They talk about their lives, even though they've been keeping tabs on each other through Instagram. It's nice to hear her voice and her laugh again. She's doing well at the University of Oslo, and she nods approvingly when he tells her that he found his calling and left the army to go to BI Norwegian Business School. He tells her he plans on going into public relations and laughs when she smirks and says she thinks it's hot. They drink and gossip about their friends and laugh some more.

Neither of them are really drunk even if they've spent hours at the bar (extensive partying does wonders for your tolerance), but he still offers to walk her home.

“Ah, yes,” she grins when she takes her coat from him. “You've been raised well, I remember.”

“Right.” The reminder sends a pang through his chest. He doesn't need another reminder of _that_ moment, so tender and bright, the moment that didn’t turn out to be the beginning of something, but the end. He does not need another reminder of that, not when Eva is right here next to him.

They walk to her old house in silence, the distance between them clear. He keeps his hands in his pockets, and she holds onto her purse and phone.

In another, long-gone time, he probably would have slung an arm over her shoulders or put a hand on her waist, and she might have linked their arms or nudged his side with her elbow as he teased her. Not anymore though.

It's not quite awkward, whatever it is between them, but it isn't the same level of comfort they once had.

She turns around at the door to face him with honest eyes and a straight back, and suddenly he remembers all over again that he has always liked her best when she is sure of herself and what she wants. “You know...no matter what happened back then,” her voice is clear and sincere, no hint of asking for anything more, “I would still like us to be friends now.”

“But I was never good at being your friend.”

He sees her eyes widen a fraction at the mildly dick-ish tone in his voice. His smirk softens immediately, more overtly teasing than hard-edged. He gives her an exaggerated wink, “Not without making you moan a little.”

A corner of her mouth lifts. He half-expects Eva to hit him on the shoulder when she reaches for him, but instead, she pulls him in by the lapels of his jacket.

“That’s fine, too,” she whispers, eyes dark and breath warm across his cheek.

For some reason, Chris resists, even though his resolve has always been kind of shit with her. He holds her away by the waist. (He isn't exactly pushing her away though.)

There's desire in her mesmerizing gaze, _that_ he's familiar with, but also something else, indecipherable, that makes him frown a little. “You sure?” he murmurs against her lips as her fingers smooth his forehead, almost tenderly.

“ _Yes_ ,” she replies emphatically, catching him off guard with a hard, open-mouthed kiss.

And that's it.

One hand tangled in her hair, angling her head just so, the other reacquainting with her curves, he doesn't know how to think when she’s this close to him and her fingers are twisting in his shirt— she smiles against his jaw before biting down softly. He groans and fights the urge to just push her up against the wall _hard_ , like how they used to hook up at parties. Whatever caution that's left in him only manifests in a desire for a slower pace. So just a little more pressure against her, just to feel a little more close to her and her skin and everything—

It's not enough for her evidently. Where he wants to savor her, she is devouring him (and his initial reservations) whole.

He breaks away from their heated kiss in a half-hearted attempt to regain some of his senses. “How sure?” he asks, head on her shoulder and mouth over her collarbone, voice low and hazy with want. But he's also smiling because she's smiling, too, and they're both a bit breathless from falling back into this routine. They're such a mess, the two of them.

She tilts his chin up with her fingers to give him a short peck, salt-caramel sweet. “Very,” she grins when he leans back in for a kiss, and another, and then another.

Kissing Eva has always been a slippery slope to Chris. It doesn't take long before the soft haze of lust settles back in his mind and heat burrows in his stomach and spreads downwards and he starts wondering _what the hell_ are they still doing outside when—

The front door swings open.

“ _Halla_ , Anne Marit.” He grins, almost sheepishly, at Eva’s mother.

His first instinct was actually to jump away from Eva when the door opened (for respectability reasons, of course), but her arms are secure around his neck, and she seems to be perfectly comfortable in this position, right where her own mother walked in on them making out on the front porch.

“Ah...Chris,” Anne Marit nods as a greeting, shooting an uncertain smile at Eva.

His grin widens in an odd sense of satisfaction that _her mother_ remembers his name. (Though, he will admit, it _was_ one hell of an introduction. Pretty memorable for anyone, really.)

For a moment, the three of them stand there, none of them sure where or who to look at. He kind of wants to laugh.

“Oh, um,” Anne Marit breaks the silence with a slightly nervous smile, “would you like to come in? I was just leaving.”

“It's fine,” he laughs lightly, stepping back and putting some more distance between him and Eva. His voice is soft and fond and even nostalgic when he explains, “We’re not together.”

“Yet.”

Eva lifts her chin, almost challengingly. Chris raises a sharp eyebrow at her. Anne Marit looks back and forth between them.

He can't help but chuckle at the impossibly familiar situation. Something in him seems to have fallen into place right here, right now.

A promise, perhaps, of some sort:

“We’ll figure it out.”

 

-

 

They do figure it out, eventually.

It takes longer than any of their friends thought. (Yes, he figured they were placing bets on when he and Eva would get together. He had to at some point.)

First few months, they don't hook up again and actually just _be_ friends for once. At some point, when he’s sure they're both ready, he brings up Sana’s Eid party and apologizes for being such a shit date and a dickhead in general. For some reason, she feels compelled to apologize, too, even though he cannot understand for the life of him why she even needs to. It is a long, somewhat awkward, a little difficult, but much needed conversation for the both of them. He feels lighter when they're done and move on to some trivial topic, lighter but not lost. He's looking at her laugh at his innuendo, comfortable and carefree, and he mentally ( _violently_ ) beats up the impulse to kiss her.

Because they're them, they fuck up and fuck after a Nissen reunion party a few weeks later. They dance around this _thing_ between them that's snowballing _again_ . Until Chris slams the breaks before they crash (again) because _God_ he missed this, missed her intimacy, but he does _not_ want to fuck this up (again).

However, bad habits are hard to break. They hook up with each other— _only_ each other— from time to time even if they've been spending a lot more time together _not_ having sex. The lines of their friendship are blurring again, and he knows it's bad and it's dangerous because this time, there really is no other explanation than the truth he is wary to admit, unlike the time when they were fuck buddies and could chalk it up to just sex.

One day Eva walks toward him in broad daylight, and his eyes widen when he recognizes the look in her eyes: she is not going to shy away from what's happening.

“Halla,” she says, a certain smile playing at her lips, “do you wanna date me?”

His heart clenches at the words, from the dream he made up forever ago. He trails his hands down her arms until they're holding hers. Looking at their joined hands, he shuts his eyes tightly and says, almost too softly to hear, “Eva.”

But he doesn't say _yes, of course._

She sighs through her nose.

“It's okay,” Eva whispers before she kisses him chastely on the lips. “I understand.”

She smiles, knowing and calm and brave and _God_ , _she's beautiful_ , and Chris finally allows himself to admit that he has been a little in love with her for years.

 

-

 

Despite his non-refusal, she doesn't leave.

In fact, she becomes more ingrained in his life than ever, and he realizes that he doesn't feel like he's drifting so much anymore one time they're grocery-shopping together and he gets an extra box of cereal she likes because they ran out in his apartment.

He doesn't tell her until a week after, when he's actually rather sleep-deprived and tired from class and not thinking straight.

(Honestly, he was originally thinking something more romantic, maybe with flowers she will actually _like_ this time and a candlelit gourmet dinner cooked by yours truly.)

Meanwhile, she's in his bed wearing one of his old t-shirts and paying more attention to her phone than to him. So he, on a whim, decides to send her something that _will_ get her attention:

**night, gf <3**

He puts his phone away and makes himself comfortable to wait for her reaction, or to get some goddamn sleep in case she ignores it. (She doesn't.)

Before he knows it, Eva has thrown her phone on the bedside table sloppily and has him pressed against the mattress with her straddling his hips.

He looks up at her in wonder (but also in mild satisfaction that  _it worked_ ). She's pretty much beaming at him, smile so blinding he remembers exactly why he thought of her as the sun and he still can't look away.

“So I'm your girlfriend now?” There's a hint of a smirk in the gleam of her eyes, playful, confident, daring. It turns him on a little (a lot). But he also knows her well enough to look beyond that to see that it's part-bravado.

His hands travel down her thighs before he sits up to kiss her deeply. “Mhm,” he pulls away just enough to reaffirm against her lips, “you're my girl.”

He catches her gaze to let her know that he means it in earnest, that he's sure, and that this time it's the real thing and he'd honestly rather die than fuck things up between them again. Her fingers are stroking his face, and he’s leaning into her touch as he watches a small, wholehearted smile blossom on her face.

Maybe he's turning into a sap, but he can't stop fucking _smiling_ at her. He moves to kiss her as some sort of compensation and ends up having to break it up into small pecks because _both of them_ are apparently saps who can't stop smiling at each other.

The funny thing is, he really doesn't mind it so much. He can't remember the last time he has been this happy, without reservation, nor has he ever seen her this happy either.

Eva pulls back, flushed and smiling, fingers carded through his hair, her other hand tracing his jawline. “And that means you're my boyfriend?” she prompts, looking at him coyly through her lashes.

“ _Yes_ ,” Chris groans when she chooses to grind down on him at that moment with a wicked grin, “that means I'm your boyfriend.”

She nips his bottom lip briefly before laughing at his grumbling as she takes off her shirt (his, technically) and tosses it over her shoulder.

There's no point in pretending they _aren't_ completely, totally smitten, so he tugs her down to consummate their new (official) relationship.

 

-

 

He's wary of the soft morning light now. Wary of its bright, innocent promises that evaporate as quick as dew. Wary of its warm, domestic illusions that the rest of the day would go as well.

When he wakes up, his mind is still blurry with sleep. The only thing he registers is warmth by his side. Oh, and someone's playing with the hair at the back of his neck.

“Eva?”

“Hi,” she smiles (it's the first thing he sees today) and continues with her ministrations. He likes it, the intimacy of her half-awake touch. “Did you sleep well?”

“Mhm,” he smiles back and pulls her closer in his arms.

“No dreams?” Her tone is light and teasing, echoing of the halcyon memories from their hookup days. Maybe it's been long enough that they can both let go of the past _almosts_ and _could’ves_. They _are_ together now, after all.

“Just one,” he hums, shifting around to get more comfortable; he's not planning on leaving the bed any time soon unless it's to make breakfast for them. “Her name is Eva, and she's my girlfriend.”

Her hand stops at the back of his neck. She raises both eyebrows at him.

“That's not even a moderately good line. It's terrible.”

He shrugs and doesn't argue with it.

Their eyes meet, and then they're both laughing, stumbling in between with chaste kisses on their mouths, her nose, his jaw. He catches her hand on his cheek and kisses her palm before he adjusts their positions so that he's hovering over her and has to lean down to press their foreheads together.

“Love me?” he asks.

Eva rolls her eyes, and for a split second, Chris prepares for her to break his heart all over again in the soft morning light.

But then, with a smile, a kiss, and an unbelievable amount of certainty, she answers him:

“Yes, of course.”

And he loves her too.

 

-

 

It's a matter of time, really.

Or a matter of who proposes first, that _dicktease_ (yes, still, and truer than ever), she knows it too.

They're kind of inevitable, and even though he still has a hard time believing in “soulmates,” he sure as hell believe they're about as close as it gets.

He's playing with her hand lazily in the afterglow, golden in contrast to the grey, raining afternoon outside, and he's wondering how the ring he bought would look on her finger. (Please, it's not as if she's going to say _no_.) She stirs and presses her lips to his pulse. A slow grin spreads across his face and a warmth throughout his chest. He shifts so he can kiss her properly.

One thing Christoffer Schistad is certain of: he's going to marry Eva Mohn someday.

**Author's Note:**

> I will never be over them, and so, one night, I accidentally wrote half of this fic and ended up finishing it, eventually. I did my best with their characterizations, and I really wanted to explore Chris as a character. However, this is super unedited so I apologize for any mistakes. 
> 
> Hope you've enjoyed reading this!


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